In The News

A Walled Wide Web for Nervous Autocrats

Evgeny Morozov January 13, 2011
The philosophy of the open-source software movement maintains that the internet is a vehicle for free speech, too essential for proprietary ways. Suspicion that US law enforcement officials have requested backdoor access from US software producers has alarmed governments and users around the globe. Moving to end dependence on US products, Russia will require public institutions to rely on open-...

WikiLeaks Fallout – Part I

Bruce Stokes January 12, 2011
About one percent of the 250,000 US State Department cables released to WikiLeaks have been published in newspapers since early December. While the official US reaction was fury, with revealed sources embarrassed, US citizens shrugged and the global public was fascinated. This two-part series, part of an ongoing special report on WikiLeaks, examines the fallout – whether the recent disclosure of...

Pentagon Must “Buy American,” Barring Chinese Solar Panels

Keith Bradsher January 11, 2011
Technological advancements increasingly center on green-energy products, an arena of growing US-China rivalry. In particular, the US military supports development of renewable energy sources because fossil fuels are difficult to transport to war zones like Afghanistan. Nations compete to boost their own manufacturers: The US and Europe generally subsidize the solar-panel customers while China...

China’s Green Ambition, US Sees Red

Michael Richardson January 5, 2011
As factory to the world, China is hungry for energy. The nation secures traditional sources of energy – as the largest producer and consumer of coal, ranking second in oil consumption and imports, fifth for oil production – and is also intent on dominating the global renewable-energies industry. Recognizing that the rapidly-growing industry creates jobs, China devotes a growing pile of investment...

Where Are the Jobs? For Many Companies, Overseas

Pallavi Gogoi January 4, 2011
The large and growing emerging markets of China, India and Brazil are a lure for multinational corporations in search of top revenue and profits. Job creation follows the markets, strengthening the middle class and education programs in emerging markets, particularly Asia. Companies like Caterpillar, Coca-Cola and DuPont hired more employees overseas in 2010 than in their home base of the US,...

Dream Postponed

Nayan Chanda January 3, 2011
In design and manufacture, aircraft are among the most complex of products. Outsourcing of specialized features can provide efficiencies, but Boeing may have gone too far with the Dreamliner. About 70 percent of Boeing’s aircraft relies on outsourced components, reports Nayan Chanda, YaleGlobal editor, in his regular column for Businessworld, and the aircraft is two years behind schedule. One...

Monitoring America

Dana Priest, William M. Arkin December 30, 2010
The US is assembling a vast data collection on its citizens, including those who haven’t committed crimes, relying on the FBI, local police, state homeland security offices and military investigators, report Dana Priest and William Arkin in an investigation for the Washington Post. One agent describes the process as looking for “dots” to connect. The Department of Homeland Security has provided...